Hugo Chavez returns to Venezuela after medical treatment in Cuba

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President Hugo Chavez returned from Cuba on Friday (December 7) following cancer-related medical treatment, walking and joking at the airport in a first public appearance in three weeks that quashed rumors he might have been at death's door.
The 58-year-old socialist leader went to Havana ten days ago to receive "hyperbaric oxygenation" - a treatment normally used to alleviate bone decay from radiation therapy.
But speculation was rife he may have suffered a recurrence of the cancer that has afflicted him twice since mid-2011. One local journalist had said he was confined to a wheelchair.
Earlier this year, Chavez declared himself "completely cured." Officials had maintained his latest trip to Cuba was just a scheduled follow-up to the radiation therapy he underwent in the first half of 2012.

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